Obviously, we don't screen our readers' TWAT nominees– until next week. That's when TTAC's writers vote on the 20 finalists from ALL your suggestions, for your final vote. Meanwhile, the "best of the best" love fest that inspired our name and shamery continues over at the buff books, car writers' associations and anywhere else they can get brownie points (i.e. press cars and advertising) from automakers. Motor Trend has announced their SUV of the Year :" the Mazda CX-9. Strangley, the accompanying article is laden with qualifiers "Mazda's finest demonstration of infusing sports-car qualities into an SUV;" "An SUV seemingly well suited for going to the mountains, midtown, or the market;" "The CX-9 was arguably the most enjoyable sport 'ute to pilot;" and "Of course, the CX-9 isn't perfect;" Although it's [more than] a little unfair to suggest that the CX-9 is inherently TWAT-worthy (our review is on its way), the SUV didn't escape TTAC commentator kansei's scorn: "The CX-9 is decidedly unsporty and pollutes the zoom zoom brand image." Oh, and two of the 11 Motor Trend's also-rans are former TWATs: the Jeep Compass (the Liberty was also on their short list) and the Subaru Tribeca. Just sayin'…
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Motor Trend, the magazine that named the infamous bathtub Caprice as Car of the Year?
Hardly surprising.
I gave up when the Ridgeline won Truck of the Year.
$28k for a jacked up Accord that can’t haul or tow much of anything? Where do I sign up?
A brief history of the Motor Trend Car of the Year. Some lowlights:
1971 Chevy Vega
1974 Mustang II
1975 Chevy Monza 2+2
1980 Chevy Citation
1981 Chrysler K cars
1983 AMC/Renault Alliance
1987 Ford Thunderbird Turbo Coupe
Every one of these would have been a TWAT winner.
As many of us pointed out here before – the MT award is likely a kiss of death.
This one is especially confusing because the 9 is NOT an SUV.
The CX-7 is a nice vehicle (although no better than a Mazdaspeed6 wagon would be…), but I doubt the raison d’etre of the CX-9
Let’s not forget Motor Trend named the entire Ford line COTY in 1964 for their marketing campaign (Iacocca’s “Total Performance” concept).
I love the CX-9 television ad wherein stylish soccer mom is hauling her brood of three kids home from school/daycare. Why not at least show four kids so there is some nominal justification for seven seats where a five-seat wagon would do?
Apropos of nothing, the only ad I can recall touting a seven-passenger capacity (in something other than a minivan) that actually showed seven people was a Jeep Commander ad, featuring seven adults atop a mountain peak next to the Commander that presumably carted them there. I couldn’t help but laugh at the ad, given this site’s brilliant description of the torturous conditions posed by the third row seat.
The entire American Motors line (including the incredibly frumpy Rambler American) was named MT car of the year for 1963.
Just goes to show the strength of the company, it took a further 24 years to die after this kiss of death…
Probably not ironically, 1963 WAS American Motors last “good” year – ever. 1964 began the inevitable slide down, down, down – with GM introducing the Chevelle and Malibu, along with the “new” 1964 GM clones (Tempest/LeMans/GTO by Pontiac, F85/Cutlass/442 by Olds and Special/Skylark/GTS by Buick) – sized exactly the same as the award-winning AMC Rambler Classic and Ambassador lines which had been such good sellers….
AMC’s situation between 1964 and 1987 is kind of analagous to the Detroit 2.8’s position at this time. No matter what they do, they are in a death-spiral. It’s only a matter of time… the competition (read: Toyota, Honda, Nissan-Renault, Hyundai-Kia, and, outside the USA at least, VW-Audi) have deep pockets and will keep on chipping, chipping, chipping at the market share of the 2.8….
By promoting TTAC TWATs, Motor Trend is working even harder to curry favor with advertisers.
argentla :
Let’s not forget Motor Trend named the entire Ford line COTY in 1964 for their marketing campaign (Iacocca’s “Total Performance” concept).
I have to admit, I had forgotten, and I still have no independent memory of this, depsite the fact that I read MT at the time (MT because there’s nothing substantive in it), and as a Chevy/GM man at that early stage of my life, I’m sure I was very upset about it.
Now this is funny!
# fotobits :
October 16th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
A brief history of the Motor Trend Car of the Year. Some lowlights:
1971 Chevy Vega
1974 Mustang II
1975 Chevy Monza 2+2
1980 Chevy Citation
1981 Chrysler K cars
1983 AMC/Renault Alliance
1987 Ford Thunderbird Turbo Coupe
Every one of these would have been a TWAT winner.
A friend who is DESPERATE for husband & kids has just bought one (hahaha)
My parents have one, it don’t bother me none. Gets what we need done, can haul stuff when we need to haul it, has some decent grunt to it, and its comfy. Whenever I feel like driving something bigger than my car, I skip our Benz and take the CX-9 instead.
Heathroi:
Is she cute, under 25, and Consservative leaning?